


Ascension

by Scilera



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: F/M, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2010-12-15
Updated: 2010-12-15
Packaged: 2017-10-13 16:56:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/139539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scilera/pseuds/Scilera
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the beginning, the Goa'uld had the technical advantage, but theirs had always been a scavenger race, rather than an enterprising one; restricted to their own planets, it took them many generations to establish a stable scientific venture of any sort.  Relatively speaking, it did not take the Tau'ri and their allies long at all to close that gap.  We should have known that the Goa'uld would never simply accept our ruling and bide their time until the fight could be fair.  They stood little chance of winning a fair fight and I believe that deep down in the ancient, dusty, time-blackened and sarcophagus-rotted excuses for their hearts, they knew it, too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ascension

It all began with Daniel.

No; if I am honest with myself, it began long, long before I ever met Daniel Jackson. But still, he was the catalyst in this particular equation. I believe that is the right way to phrase it. It has been so long since I have spoken in human metaphors. Daniel Jackson, with his strange mixture of wisdom and innocence, touched me in a way no human had done since my Ascension. And so, when he was finally in a position to release his burdens, I assisted him in doing so.

He was happy, for the most part, but there was a longing and a loneliness from him that I couldn't understand. There were many of us in almost constant contact of some kind, and yet he exuded a loneliness that made my soul ache. I gained the first glimmers of understanding when Ba'al captured the one named Jack O'Neill. To have all the power of the universe at your fingertips and to be still powerless to save one of the people you cared about most in the world... I would be surprised if the whole of the collective wasn't exposed to that pain on some level. He certainly broadcast it loudly enough.

If the others of the Tau'ri had not come when they did, I believe it would have driven Daniel to madness. He could not bring himself to break the rules the collective impose upon us all, because he knew the sense of them. I believe in the spirit of those rules, but not always the letter. So it was that when Anubis tricked Samantha Carter and Jack O'Neill into a trap with his image, I took pity on Daniel Jackson.

When I had assisted in Daniel Jackson's Ascension, he had approached it as he always had anything difficult in his life. He thought, he researched, he remembered. He looked for the answers that he knew were out there somewhere – only to find that the answer was in himself all along. When we approached Samantha Carter, she proceeded as _she_ always had. She kept trying and trying, going through every possible solution with a perseverance even _I_ had to admire. As her body failed on Anubis' torture table, her spirit was set free.

Jack O'Neill was … difficult. Daniel Jackson would tell me that this is an understatement, but even so, it is the truth. His sense of self and separation was such a vital part of who he was that even the combined force of deepest love from his two friends, he was only softened and not swayed. I feared that it would never happen, but Anubis – furious in his loss of Samantha Carter to what he assumed was Asgard trickery – made a fatal error. He used his weapons of pain and manipulation to break a part of Jack O'Neill's mind, to convince him that Anubis stood before him and tortured Samantha Carter and Daniel Jackson to unimaginable heights of agony.

His rage was so powerful, his fury and his need to protect those two and make their tormentor pay at all costs so strong that – with all of our help – he literally _willed_ himself into Ascension to make that possible. By the time he slowed down enough to let both Samantha Carter and Daniel Jackson blend with him to prove their safety, the entire collective trembled at the fate of that particular Goa'uld System Lord.

They found something important in each other that day. I do not claim to understand or even to know the specifics. I do know that – for a time – they were happy. Anubis' loss meant a lull in the fighting that had absorbed so much of their lives for so long. It was good that they had some peace. I did not again feel Daniel Jackson's loneliness. I felt I had done right by him.

Ascension is metamorphosis. It marks the change from a being stuck between the realms of matter and energy – constrained by both – to a being composed entirely of the universal energy. It does not change who you are so much as amplify it. When another Goa'uld System Lord filled the power vacuum Anubis left behind, he ripped a swathe of death and destruction across entire galaxies. None of the three who had made up the human contingent of SG-1 could just stand by and let that happen. By this time, I had come to think of them as my children, of sorts. They were still very young by our standards of reckoning and so when they petitioned the collective for a solution, I felt it was my duty to add my voice to theirs.

Though all three of them worked tirelessly to convince the collective of the need for intervention – it was Daniel Jackson and Samantha Carter who researched and tried every possible solution before coming up with the brilliant one – in the end, I believe it was the fact that Jack O'Neill refused to stop insulting them with every foul word in every language that ever existed which convinced them to agree. Even our patience has limits and they all remembered the force of his fury unleashed on the Goa'uld.

It was decided that the collective as a whole would re-arrange the cosmos. The Goa'uld and their planets and their loyal humans and Jaffa were sent to one side and all the Tau'ri, their allies and the free worlds were shifted to the other. Between the two we erected a barrier that would keep them apart. It was decided that when both sides had reached an equal level of technology, the barrier would be brought down and the universal Balance would be maintained.

And so, for hundreds and then thousands of years, there was relative peace within the universe. Jack O'Neill, Daniel Jackson and Samantha Carter stayed among the Ascended and served as guides and mentors for countless civilizations. Under their gentle – or, in the Jack's case, not so gentle, though the others tempered him – guardianship, the free races progressed through an extended era of prosperity, learning, culture and exploration.

The longer the three of them existed as part of the Ascended, the more and more they seemed to me – and to others – as simply three facets of the same entity. They were each their own, but so deeply intertwined that together they were indeed greater than the sum of their parts.

I once asked them why they chose not to Descend when the barrier had been erected. They could have lived their lives in full, secure in the knowledge that they had done more than could have been hoped for. Their part in this struggle did not need to continue. They could rest. They simply looked at each other, smiled and explained that they could do more this way. I would never call any of them selfish beings, but the intimacy of their smiles made me suspect there was more than one motivation to stay as they were.

In the beginning, the Goa'uld had the technical advantage, but theirs had always been a scavenger race, rather than an enterprising one; restricted to their own planets, it took them many generations to establish a stable scientific venture of any sort. Relatively speaking, it did not take the Tau'ri and their allies long at all to close that gap. We should have known that the Goa'uld would never simply accept our ruling and bide their time until the fight could be fair. They stood little chance of winning a fair fight and I believe that deep down in the ancient, dusty, time-blackened and sarcophagus-rotted excuses for their hearts, they knew it, too.

 

-`-`-

 

When the being who had once – oh so very long ago, now – been called Colonel Samantha Carter pulled the pieces of her consciousness that were entirely hers together into a more cohesive awareness, it was with a disturbing disquiet in her soul. It was this worry as much as her 'waking' that roused both of her companions into a similar state of awareness.

Like she and the being who had once been Doctor Daniel Jackson had explained countless times before, beings of pure energy did not have the physical needs of those trapped in casings of matter. Sleep was a concept that did not exist for them anymore. But those days after their Ascension had been so overwhelming that they needed to cling to whatever shreds of their humanity they could. Daniel had long before dropped out of even the habit, but with all of them there together, they could relax and let their awareness drift away to mingle and swirl in and amongst that of the other two. Whole years could pass in this manner, so long as nothing disturbed them.

There were other ways to share themselves with each other, of course – some of which not even Daniel had known about until the being who had once been known as General Jack O'Neill had gotten bored and creative – but this was about comfort and gentle contentment, the easy lap of not-quite-conscious minds against each other in the most intimate manner. Samantha felt badly about pulling her companions from such a pleasant state, but her disquiet was real and she knew that they understood that even without her saying so. The moments after 'waking' were always the times when the lines between them seemed blurred and fluid. ****

 **  
Cold/Frightened/Problem? **   That thread of consciousness, bold and solid in a way that nothing ephemeral should be... That was Jack. Without either of them being aware of the movement, she knew, Samantha felt both Jack and Daniel close in around her as if they would bodily shield her from whatever threatened. _ Some habits never die.   
_

It was rare that any of them spoke in full 'sentences' anymore. Without mouths or vocal cords, it was the thought that came across. Usually it was Daniel who retained enough memory of the languages he'd loved so much to turn them so poetically, but Samantha's voice – such as it was – was so full of affection for her two 'boys' that no one commented on the anomaly.

 **  
_We feel/Same/Confirmation?_ **   Daniel's thoughts were always more layered and complex than Jack's straightforward communication, but there was a richness and a power in them that both excited and reassured his companions.   
_  
Agree/Unknown Cause/Information? _   Samantha's wash of concern and confusion was met with silent support and all of them lapsed into thought. Finally, Jack sighed; an entirely human action which only he seemed to have remained able to do. ****

**  
Oma Desala/Answers? **   He gathered more of his awareness into himself like a soldier donning armor before battle. He left only the tendrils that connected him to both Samantha and Daniel, just as they did. Always.   ** Both owe me/Big time   ** Both of his companions projected waves of mirth and affection over him, bolstered by the background hum of unending support. His dislike of Oma Desala had stayed with him for a long time. Even now, when the barest hint of possible affection brushed the edges of his thoughts, they could still feel him bracing himself for the frustration that was sure to come.

With no more than the edge of a thought, the three found themselves in Oma's favorite haunt; a moonlit garden just like the one she'd had on Keb. It took longer for them to recall the shape and form of who they once were and to shape their energy to reflect that image, but they knew she would not see them until they did. Oma Desala was strange that way. Unlike most of the Ascended, who viewed their past forms of flesh with distaste and some bit of shame, she believed that such beginnings were the root of each and every one.   


“If the tree forgets its roots, how can it know that it will not be swept away by the storm?” Daniel could see Jack wince at the sound of those words and set his jaw. Without conscious thought or planning, both he and Samantha reached an arm out to rest their palms against his shoulder blades. Jack's expression didn't change, but in the private links between them, they could feel his gratitude.

“But with all of its focus on the roots, it will neglect the leaves and not survive the coming winter.”

Jack spared a moment to wonder if Daniel took some sort of perverse joy in playing Oma's game, but he got no answer beyond wordless, affectionate amusement.  “In all things there must be a balance, for no mind in existence can truly know a thing without also knowing its opposite.” She nodded sagely once, but then her face split into a bright smile and she opened her arms in a strangely human expression of joy. “You are beginning to sense this balance, are you not?” Three figures as solid as a wisp of smoke stared back at her, silent. Samantha had learned that this was the quickest way to get Oma Desala to move on to the true topic at hand and the other two followed her lead in a shift so fluid _she_ almost missed it – and she was very accustomed to such things.

“The disquiet, the worry; you feel it, don't you?” All three nodded in perfect unison. “You are growing, then – and faster than anticipated.” Her smile then was motherly and she reached out to cup Samantha's cheek with one hand and to brush a bit of fringe off of Daniel's brow with the other. “This is wonderful. I am proud of you.  _ All _ of you.” She gave Jack a knowing look and he had the decency to blush. A little.   


As usual, it was Daniel who took the initiative to weasel further information from Oma Desala. “Samantha felt it first. When I learned of it from her, I could look and sense it too...” He trailed off his sentence in a not-so-subtle cue for Oma to fill in the missing bits of information, but she seemed entirely content to say nothing. The silence stretched on for seconds or years, but she did not yield until Daniel grumbled something and scuffed his toe in the dirt-that-is-not-dirt.

“I do not know.” Her shoulders slumped forward and the three discovered that Jack was  _ not _ the only one left who knew how to sigh.   


“You don't  _ know _ ?” Jack's voice stretched over that last word with affronted incredulity. Daniel knew he should be exasperated by his companion's lack of tact, but there was only mirth bounced like a pebble between the three of them as he and Samantha shared a quick look behind Jack's head. “You're the … the crazy lightning lady with all of the answers so far ahead of time that you have to make them into impossible riddle lines just to pass the time until the recipients show up to ask the questions. How do you not  _ know _ ?” A few of the synonyms he plucked from Samantha's mind without even meaning to, while the milder flavor of the quip tasted richly of Daniel, but the core was purely Jack; Jack and his frustration with enigmatic aliens.    
**  
Try enigmatic  anything , actually. **   Full sentences were easier in this shape. It seemed … more natural.    
  


_ Maybe that's why Oma Desala demands this shape here. _   Samantha considered the possibility, opening herself to share more of her consciousness with the other two, allowing their exchange to take only a fraction of a second. Both males were in agreement, though to differing degrees. Samantha burst into a light laugh, though she silenced it quickly upon that look from Oma Desala.. Samantha winced, Jack bristled and Daniel soothed; all in the space of time it takes an electron to make a single orbit around its atom.   


“Though the wind can move anywhere it chooses, it must always make a choice.” The frown that deepened the lines between her eyes spoke of Oma Desala's dissatisfaction with this arrangement, but Jack had just about reached his limit for enigmatic quotations. Forestalling a disaster he knew was coming as surely as Daniel knew his own name, he took a step forward while Samantha tugged Jack gently back a pace. He could feel her telling Jack of an impending supernova in one of the remote systems they could go play with once this was finished. The promise of impending explosions improved Jack's mood considerably and he even managed a saucy sort of smile in Oma's direction.

“None of us are omniscient, Oma. We know. We'd simply hoped that since you are so much older that you would be able to tell us more. We meant no offense.” He spoke firmly in the group sense, though it was undoubtedly Jack who had given any potential insult. Oma Desala smiled in that – to Jack's mind – infuriating way of hers and nodded. She would like to see anyone try and divide these three one from the other. She knew they meant no offense, Daniel knew that she knew and she knew that Daniel knew, but there were ways things were done, even among the Ancient Ascended.  _ Especially _ among the Ascended.

“Nothing shakes the well-built wall, save the foundation upon which it was built. Look first to the earth and the stone; root out the trouble at its source or it will blossom into the very wall itself and by its growth destroy.”  Perhaps something else demanded her attention at that point, or perhaps the look on Jack's face – even with the promise of grand explosions – triggered some remaining instinct of self-preservation in Oma Desala. Whatever the reason, she vanished as soon as she had spoken. The three were free to resume their nebulous forms of interconnected energy and within a blink they were far, far away from that garden. In this form, distance meant nothing.

Jack plunged into the dying star to add and mold and shape the very elements within it to ensure the best possible explosion. Daniel spun the dead and empty planets into each other, creating spacial debris that he funneled in to Jack like shrapnel in a particularly large grenade. Samantha wove in and among the gasses and dust that formed the outer cloud, laughing and dancing as she brought it closer and closer, until it shone about the surface of the star like a nebulous coating. But even while they were millions and millions of physical miles apart, they were together, their joy in a shared project, in the part each played like the steps to a dance, was shared among them all as if they were one mind that simply happened to exist in three unique parts.

And when their work was complete, they all entered the star's very core and lowered all barriers between their individual selves, coming together in a surge of passion and pleasure that – quite literally – set off fireworks in the skies around them.

 

-`-`-

 

When the dust settled and the lights in the sky faded finally dimmed to something more sustainable, each of the three brushed a final caress against the others and then broke apart; each to their own favored planets and friends. Daniel poured over texts that hadn't seen the light of day in centuries and met with the people he had looked after for so long, now; seeking answers that he knew existed somewhere. Samantha brushed her mind through the various people and projects she held dear, looking for even a hint that something bigger was brewing. Only Jack thought to check the physical barrier that cut the universe in two. It felt as strong as it ever had, but there was an added maliciousness to its power that he was sure hadn't been there before.

He made himself concentrate and return to the physical shape by which he was known to the physical races and spent the next few hours teaching Thor how to fish, all while pumping his friend for the latest information on the state of things. Jack was many things – direct most of all – but subtlety never was a strong point. Finally, Thor placed his rod on the dock – still not entirely trusting that it wasn't a weapon of some kind – and turned to Jack.

“Something has happened.” Jack jiggled his cork free of a snag in the pond and then reeled slowly for a few feet; enough to make his line taut again. He took a swig of his beer and winced. Nothing in these … dream worlds they could create to speak with the physical beings ever managed to get the taste right. Daniel had told him once that it was his mind that created the small pocket of existence. If it didn't taste right, it was because that was how he created it. Jack ignored him. There was just no way he would have forgotten the taste of a good beer, he was sure of it. At least, there better not have been.

“Sam and Daniel felt some sort of …  _ disturbance _ _ in the Force _ last night.” Jack always talked about such things this way when he had to speak of them at all. “It was enough to scare Sam.” He took another swig of his beer – ugh, why couldn't it at least stay  _ cold _ ? His pretend-y fun worlds officially sucked. Next time he'd get Daniel to do it for him. “Not even Oma knows what it is, but her riddles sounded even  _ more _ ominous than usual.”   


Thor was silent for a time. Jack had convinced Samantha and Daniel years and years ago to help him interfere a little in the Asgard physiology. For the last thousand years they had been able to use their genetic 'Loom' to weave new strands of DNA together and create new life. Jack's intervention had come by subtle changes to their cellular structure to make the cloning and copying of consciousness something the body was built for. He had to fight for it. Daniel said they shouldn't condemn a mortal to an immortality like this, but Thor's people were used to it by now and Jack just couldn't … he needed something to stay the same. Even though Thor believed he had died long ago and that these were simple dreams, it was nice to have something so familiar; something from Before. Samantha and Daniel had indulged him in the end, just as they always would.

“It is strange to find something you do not have the answer to, O'Neill.” Torn between the urge to smile at the use of his ancient surname and the urge to wince at the reminder of a helplessness he hadn't know for longer than some planets had been around, Jack settled for a grunt. “What will you do?"

“I don't know.” Jack sighed and his shoulders slumped forward. “I don't feel anything wrong, but whatever it is, if it has that crazy lightning lady worried, then... It's gotta be bad.” He chewed one side of his bottom lip in thought, glancing over at the still-unreadable expression on Thor's face. “How – how long have the Goa'uld been gone, Thor?”   


“Eleven thousand, six hundred and fifty three years, O'Neill.” There was a moment then of silence, broken only by the chirping of crickets on the other side of the pond. “Why do you ask?”

“You … your race knows why they left, don't they?” He had never before broached the subject with Thor – or anyone else – in these sort of dream things, but that sense of maliciousness he'd felt on the barrier worried him more than he wanted to admit

“The Ancients separated them from the species they meant to conquer. We were never told why or how.” Thor tilted his head back and blinked up at the man who had done more for the universe at large than any of the other  _ races _ combined. “You suspect they are up to something.”   Jack didn't say anything. He reeled in his line, added a fresh worm to the hook and re-cast. “Let's just say that I have a healthy respect for  _ exactly _ how conniving the little snake-headed bastards can be.” Perhaps because of the circumstances surrounding his Ascension, Jack had never been able to let go of his natural hatred and distrust of all things Goa'uld. “Just … be careful, okay? Keep an eye on things.”

He knew that the time was coming soon for Thor to wake and so he holstered the rod against his deck chair and stood to stretch. His Asgard friend looked thoughtful, and possibly – Jack  _ still _ could never tell for sure, with them – more than slightly concerned. “I will keep the fleet on alert, O'Neill. Freyr can contact the other races and … ask.” Jack was not used to his friend sounding so unsure. He made a gesture for Thor to continue and the Asgard commander shook his head. “We will not get very far on a dream. The Ancients have used such ways to warn us of impending disaster in the distant past, but you are very much not an Ancient, O'Neill.”   


Jack had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from answering that. Technically, Thor was right. In a sense. “Then fudge it a little. Tell 'em the dream was from the Ancient Ascended and that it'd probably be best to … you know, act on it.”

Thor's gaze was unblinking and a little eerie in its intensity. Jack had no idea how two empty black eyes could be 'intense' but that was definitely the impression he got. “You wish me to deceive my own people, O'Neill?” The question was softly spoken, as always, but Jack got the distinct feeling that there was more riding on this than he knew. Reaching one hand behind his head, he bit back his knee-jerk response of ' _ If that's what it takes', _ rubbed at the back of his neck and squinted out at the setting sun. 

“It wouldn't be lying, though. Not really. For all you know, the Ancients are just, I dunno, using my … my likeness to send the message.” He knew what he was trying to say, but he didn't have the words for it. Sam would know what he meant to say and would translate for Daniel, who knew the words he needed, but they were doing their own work and – though he could still feel them – were not here to save him from his own mouth. Shrugging in a single, jerky motion, he turned and walked back along the dock towards the cabin in the distance. “I guess you'll just have to trust me.”

 

-`-`-

 

Neither Samantha's nor Daniel's own travels led to any more useful information. Just vague stirrings of unease and discontent among their chosen planets and people. None of them knew what the malicious feeling of the Barrier was, even when Jack showed them exactly how it felt. They could not approach the collective with only their bad feeling and so they kept watch as best they could for the better part of a year. It was not enough.

Eleven thousand, six hundred and fifty four years after the barrier was erected between the two halves of creation, the Goa'uld broke through it. No one could figure out how, but the balance between the two sides was not far enough in anyone's favor for the collective to do anything else about it. For the next hundred years, Jack, Daniel and Samantha fought the Goa'uld and defended those peoples who they had guided and shaped from time before memory. They blatantly defied the collective's standing orders of non-intervention, but having to fight the collective as well decreased their effectiveness almost tenfold.

For years they had been hearing stories of the 'demons' who fought alongside the Goa'uld and had always assumed that they were members of the collective, striving for some sort of balance. When they finally met one in person, the three beings felt real fear for the first time in aeons. It called itself Ba'al. They imprisoned him, but it would not last long. This, they felt, would force the collective into action, surely. They were wrong.

To present this to the collective would be to put themselves at its mercy, for they would finally be in a position to be caught and kept from their work in this fight. It was a risk they had to take, because Ba'al was not the only demon who had evolved through this twisted form of Ascension. This would tip the balance far out of the favor of the peoples the Goa'uld sought to enslave and surely that would pull the collective's heads from their collective ass. Or so Jack very eloquently put it.

Not only did the collective refuse to meddle in what they called 'the evolution of a species in the natural course of time' but they bound the three and gave them a choice. Since they could not restrain themselves from interfering as they were, they could choose either to be restrained to the collective's own plane of existence until the conflict was resolved – one way or the other – or they could Descend and attempt to influence the outcome in that way. Despite Oma Desala's vehement protests, these were their only two options. It wasn't even a choice. Their entire lives had been about protecting these people in some manner. They would continue to do so, no matter the consequences or the handicap.

And so there, standing alone in the center of the collective's council chamber, they felt their consciousnesses slowly, painfully disentangle from each other in a way that felt as if they were having limbs amputated without anesthesia. When finally it was finished, they were left simply standing there, the only contact between them their grasped hands. Oma Desala took them from that place and hid them somewhere dark for a year and a day, kept them asleep so that their minds could adjust to the physical restraints without breaking.

When finally they could be woken without losing their sanity, she did so, though her heart grew heavier at the sheer loneliness she could see in each pair of eyes as they opened. She brought them together and felt her chest tighten as they moved on instinct into close physical contact. It was a poor substitute for what they had before, she knew, but she didn't know how to help them.

So she helped them in other ways. She was older than almost all of the others in the collective. She knew their ways and could circumvent them in ways her three children could not. She brought them to an uninhabited world, rich with all the natural resources they would ever need and she gave them a Stargate better protected than even their ancient iris could have done. She brought them supplies and every few hours someone else would arrive, familiar in a way the three weren't sure they could understand just yet.

When night finally fell, the three of them tossed and turned in their separate cots in their separate tents for hours until finally Daniel and Sam got out of their beds and moved silently toward Jack's tent. They reached the entrance at the same time – though from opposite sides – and shared a hesitant, fragile smile. Unsure of how to proceed – or whether they should proceed at all – they faltered and stood there for full minutes, unable to move forward or go back. It was the cranky “You two going to stand there like idiots all night or you gonna get your asses back where you're supposed to be?” coming from inside the tent that provided a catalyst for action.

Without the constant flow of emotions and thought streams between them, the words that were meant with gruff affection were perceived as denial and rejection. Sam inhaled sharply at the physical pain she felt with that question and Daniel's whole body slumped in on itself. He'd taken a step back from the entrance when two strong arms pulled them both inside and into an embrace so tight it almost hurt. “I meant in  _ here _ , guys.  _ With _ me. Jesus, if you two are really geniuses, we're in some pretty deep shit. As a whole species.” 

The rough rumble of Jack's voice was so close to their ears – so familiar and yet so new – that for a moment, if they tried very, very hard, they could almost pretend it was in their minds; where it belonged. This was so new for all of them. The last time they had been restricted to these bodies, they had restricted themselves from each other. But they had been so closely intertwined for so long that it was no longer an option to step back; the line had already been crossed. It was so strange to be so close and yet so lonely. They all felt it, but there were no words. They no longer had the ability to communicate without those words and so no one said anything.

Eventually it was Sam who sensibly pointed out that theydid actually  _ _ need sleep, now. Between the three of them it was more difficult than it should have been to line up three cot mattresses on the floor and cover them in blankets and cushions – it was like dancers trying a new step without the music to guide them. Eventually, however, it was done. The three of them crawled into bed, then, Sam sandwiched between Jack and Daniel. It took a few moments to find a comfortable arrangement for the tangle of bodies and limbs that let each of them stay in contact with the others, but when that came, the loneliness ebbed – just a little bit. It was enough to sleep, and so they did.   


  



End file.
